bin ÜBERFORDERT / / I am OVERWHELMED

is presenting Vito Acconci‘s workBiting myself:biting as many parts of my body as my mouth can reach

On the occasion of the exhibition bin ÜBERFORDERT / I am OVERWHELMED, fontaine b.presents a serigraph by Vito Acconci showing the documentation of the performance Biting myself:biting as many parts of my body as my mouth can reach. A witness of the process, a heritage of the concept of his performative act. The piece belongs to the series Trademarks produced in September 1970. The work of Acconci stands as an evidence and as an elaboration of a wider documentation of his body of works realized throughout the 1969 and the 1973.

TrademarksSeptember 1970Photographed activity/Ink prints Sitting naked on the floor, and biting myself:biting myself as many parts of my body as my mouth can reach.Printer’s ink is applied to each bite; bite-prints are stamped, like finger prints, on convenient surfaces around me (wall, floor, furniture, paper, another person’s body, another person’s clothes…)The attempt is to reach, mark, as much as my body as possible:getting through a spot. The means will be to turn in on myself Turn on myself: a performance can be a scheme for splitting oneself in two, with one part taking action relative to the proclivities of the other: arousal jag.Determining a space of free movement: performance as locomotion across a boundary-mouth to leg, skin to flesh.Learning the region: the marks produced will measure performance ability : differentiation of areas previously undifferentiated.The biting should produce a clear mark: ‘staking a claim’.